Mailbag #156

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You are writing a lot about creating experiences.

It is easy to create amazing experiences by spending a lot of money. (visit a 3 star Michelin restaurant, tickets for the OASIS world tour ...)

Do you think it is possible to create the same level of experience while being on a budget?

What is your point of view?—SD

“Do you think it is possible to create the same level of experience while being on a budget?”

Yes. In fact, you’re more likely to create a memorable experience with little money.

Money buys spectacle, which can lead to great experiences, but frequently doesn’t. The bigger the investment, the bigger the expectations, and expectations kill experiences. You stop being present and start running a cost–benefit analysis on the moment.

What night of the year do people plan and invest in the hardest? New Year’s Eve. What night reliably disappoints the most people? New Year’s Eve. It’s not a subtle correlation.

A $600 dinner may be a great experience, if you’re lucky. But more often than that it’s like, “$600 for this? I mean. It was good… but….”

And even when you’re the one picking up the tab, the money can still distort things for the other person or people. They may start feeling like they’re supposed to react a certain way, or enjoy it at a certain level. They might begin overthinking the whole situation. Why did he spend this much? What does this mean? Am I showing enough appreciation? It stops being a shared moment and starts being a transaction they’re now emotionally managing. The whole thing becomes less pure.

I’ve spent years thinking about how to turn time with someone into something they remember. I think I have a book’s worth of stuff to say on it, actually. I can’t get into too much detail, because it hasn’t crystallized into a form suitable for sharing yet. But I believe there are elements you can put into place that are likely to lead to peak experiences. And none of them really require much money.

I know so many people who read your site daily, which makes me wonder if anyone has ever tried to snatch you up to write the marketing emails for one of the big magic companies. If I started my own online shop, what’s the possibility I could bring you on in that capacity?—DS

I feel like someone asked this before.

I think writing magic marketing emails would be fun. I’d happily do that for a living wage. But no one would pay a living wage for that, so the “possibility” of that happening is next to zero.

If I did it, I’d want to allow people the ability to opt-in to an uncensored version, so I could say whatever I wanted. “Pull your pants down before you watch this demo unless you want your mom to find a bunch of crusty cum stains in your undies when she does your laundry this week.”

See? I could do it just fine.

I don't wanna keep bringing up Oz but I found this interview with someone who had her PIN revealed by Oz. Apparently he kept insisting that he wouldn't use her real PIN and then revealed it on air.

Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this. I feel like a lot of magicians have a terrible sense of people's personal boundaries and will deliberately break them for the sake of surprise.—AO

Yeah, I don’t know. Craig Petty suggested in a recent video that maybe it was some kind of miscommunication, but after skimming through this one, it doesn’t really sound that way.

It sounds like Oz pre-showed the woman to “make up a new PIN code” that was mathematically based on her real PIN code. And, obviously, that process allowed him to get her real PIN code, and he understood revealing that would be much more impactful than revealing some random four-digit number.

Is it a shitty thing to do? Yeah, kind of. But I also think Oz understands he has a relatively short shelf life as far as being in the spotlight of the general public, and he needs to capitalize on it now. The short-term reaction was likely more important than any long-term repercussions. Because in the long term he’ll be back doing corporate shows for Nabisco anyway.

Also, this woman seems like a bit of a dope too. She’s acting like a PIN code is difficult to change. How does she think it works? Like… she understands we need her ATM card or other banking info for the PIN to have any meaning, yes? She knows you can’t just walk up to an ATM, shout her name at the screen, punch in her PIN code, and have it start shooting her money out, right? Relax, dingbat.

Until December...

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This is the final post until December. Regular posting starts again on Monday, Dec. 1st. The next issue of the newsletter will be sent out Sunday, November 30th.

Has Ellusionist given up?

Here’s their Black Friday “deal” this year.

“Happy Black Friday. 86% of you will be paying full price.”

Gee, thanks.

Just in time for three weeks after Halloween, Kenton Knepper has released this incredible effect with a lollipop.

Merely by tilting and wiggling your hand back and forth, you can get his special $30 lollipop to move as if by everyone’s understanding of basic physics magic.

Even more incredibly, Kenton has used his powerful “Wonder Words” to get every lollipop manufacturer to build this gimmick into every lollipop sold. Incredible.

Thinking of the shitty tagline for Ghost Deck (An unexpected moment, perfectly timed), and the seeming desperation of Murphy’s to just throw that generic tagline on their trick, I thought I would help the magic community out with this tagline generator.

Now you can just choose a random number from list A, and pair it with a random number from list B, and you’ll have your own meaningless tagline.

“What’s this new trick from Murphy’s? Hmmm… A stunning moment, designed to amaze. Hey, now that sounds like my kind of trick!”

Darling friend, collaborator, and lady-artist (I’m doing what I can to bring back the early–mid 20th-century notion of gendering women in their professions—“she’s a lady doctor,” “she’s a woman lawyer”—I think it’s sweet) Stasia Burrington, who has done all the Jerx illustrations for over a decade now, has a couple of projects I want to bring your attention to.

First is her Yukika Tarot deck, which is already funded on Kickstarter, but you can pre-order it at her Etsy shop.

For you tarot purists, know that she has “renamed and reframed” some of the cards in the deck.

I think they’re cool choices that make for a unique deck and add some more relatable concepts into the mix. But if you’re going to be like, “Oh, no, where’s my beloved Chariot!” then maybe this isn’t the deck for you.

Stasia has also released her second edition of the Magic Neko deck, which is her cat-focused playing cards and oracle deck.

In honor of that, I’ll reprint what I wrote about the original deck in 2018. It’s even more true for this version of the deck, which is even cuter and more eye-catching.

Now I've got a message for some of my younger male readers. About 15 or so years ago, Ellusionist put out something called the Black Tiger Deck. It was a black deck of playing cards and on the box there was a tiger who was...like... flexing or some shit? Like he was in a pose that no tiger has ever been in.

It was the epitome of Ellusionist's corniness. And I have no doubt they made a mint off these decks because Ellusionist knows their audience. A bunch of virgins definitely bought the deck thinking they'd take it to school and girls would be breathlessly fanning themselves, "Who is this sexy bad-boy with this black deck of cards with the super-ripped tiger on the case? I can't wait to get to know this virile rebel!"

Here's the deal, you want a girl to pay attention to you? Don't get the deck of cards that says, "I'm compensating for my low testosterone." Get Stasia's deck. Women (and men) of all ages are taken with her esthetic. You keep that out on the lunch table. A girl picks it up and oohs and ahhs over its cuteness. She asks why you have the deck. You say a friend of a friend designed it. (I'm your friend. Stasia's my friend. It's true enough.) And you grabbed it today because there's something you're working on with it. Then you point out that the case says it can be used as an oracle deck and there's this little fortune-telling ritual you'd like to try. Cute drawings, kittens, fortune-telling rituals: you'll be a girl magnet. 

Then do a trick in the guise of a fortune-telling routine. Make it positive. Don't be like, "Uhhhh... I think you're going to get cancer." There should be some sort of magic surprise/coincidence at the end. Don't take credit for it. Blame the deck or the universe or her "energy." Don't make it something about you or your "compatibility" with her. Too soon. When you're done, don't do any more tricks. Tell her you have to get going and excuse yourself. Be a little mysterious. Before you go, imply you might have something else you're working on that you'd like to show her in the future. "You have a very unique energy," you say. Then go on your way. Just plant the seed, baby. Trust me. I'll Cyrano your ass into going to prom with the head cheerleader if you just have a little faith.

More than ever, I appreciate being able to connect to the humanity in the work of the artists I follow, and that’s what I’ve always loved about Stasia’s work. You can feel the personality and the soul behind it. 

Check out her Etsy store to get these decks and other goodies.

Darling friend, collaborator, and boy-app-developer, Marc Kerstein sent out an email yesterday saying he would be offering 20% off some of his apps for Black Friday, including: Diverter, Streets Pro, ISO, and Subliminal.

I asked him why Xeno wasn’t on the list and he said, “Because I couldn’t find a good photo of someone using it to match the others. Then I just forgot.”

Uh, okay. Half-assed marketing aside, Marc creates the best apps in the magic sphere and doesn’t really do discounts often, so now is a good time to pick some of his apps up. Even some of the ones that are not on sale, as the price on those may be going up soon.

Xeno (which he has since added to the sale) is, I think, a mandatory iPhone utility for peeking something on a spectator’s phone. I would say the same for the non-discounted Inertia Pro which allows you to force anything on a website.

He’s also discounted the Xeno Anywhere in-app purchase that lets you do Xeno with any site. So if you already have the basic app, you still may want to check out the sale which can be found here. The sale goes until Dec. 2nd.

Oh, and Marc, so you’re never adrift in the future without a pic for Xeno, here’s me performing it for some chick I met.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S. readers.

Thank you to everyone who supports the site and affords me the time to work on it, the newsletter, and the books year after year. You’re a delight.

See you all back here in December.

On Likability

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I started watching Taskmaster earlier this year because an old friend was on a recent season.

For those who don’t know the show, five comedians compete in a series of absurd “tasks.” They’re awarded points depending on how well they accomplish the tasks and they “win” “prizes” contributed by the other contestants.

The same group stays together all season, so you really get to know them.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend who I watch the show with said, “The casting on this show is great. Everyone is very likable.”

And it’s true. I’ll start a season and look over the new cast and I might find myself drawn to a couple of them. But by the end of the season, in almost all cases, I like the contestants more than I anticipated I would.

Well, sure, it’s because you know them better.

No. Getting to know people better doesn’t make me like them more in most situations. Not in real life or TV. When I watch a season of Survivor, I don’t end the season liking most of the contestants.

Yes, but these are comedians, and funny people are likable.

Well, technically they’re not all “comedians.” But even so, I didn’t say that by the end of the season I found them all funny. I said I found them all likable.

Why? And what does this have to do with magic?

Here’s what I believe. The reason the Taskmaster contestants feel so generally likable, despite massive dissimilarities when it comes to race, gender, age, sexuality, temperament, is that a lot of the season is spent watching these people struggle and fail. And at times we see them have unexpected success, and we see them celebrate that.

These are very human moments, and they make people very likable.

And moments like these are almost completely missing from most magic performances.

If we fail, it’s in an obviously fake way, designed to build tension for our ultimate success.

When we succeed, there’s rarely any joy or surprise in it.

The magician changes five $1 bills into five $100s, and what does he do? He cocks his eyebrow, gives a small smile, and makes a joke.

What if instead he blurted out, “Holy shit. Holy shit! That worked? I can’t believe that worked! Shit… hold on… can we spend this? Will they somehow know it’s not real? Or… is it real? I don’t even… Oh, who cares. Let’s go out. I’m treating you to dinner. Let’s see if this stuff spends like the real deal.” That’s going to make the moment feel much different to the participant.

This sort of thing has to be done judiciously, of course.

But if you can mix in failures that don’t resolve themselves…

“Sorry. I’m not getting it. What word were you thinking? Carnation? Hmm… no, I wasn’t even close.”

And successes that leave you genuinely excited…

“We drew the same thing? Seriously?! That’s so wild! I genuinely felt like I was stepping into your mind. That’s crazy. I thought this imagination-syncing ritual was total bullshit.”

Then you’ll create moments of genuine humanity—rare in an art form that usually keeps the performer and audience at arm’s length.

As far as how often to use this technique, don’t overdo it or it will cease to mean anything to people.

I’ve never worked out how frequently I’ll do this sort of thing, but if I had to guess, I like to weave in something totally “not working” about once every ten times. This could be me failing to do what I was attempting, or whatever concept we’re exploring being a dud (“I knew this imagination-syncing ritual was nonsense.”)

The rest of the time, when the trick does work, I make sure to act at least a little surprised, pleased, confused, or freaked out. These are the reactions of a human, not an all-powerful wizard. And I can dial those reactions up or down so I’m not always acting the identical way after a trick.

For the most part, the only time I ever act like “I knew that would happen” is with the Spectator-As-Magician plot where (sometimes) my response will be, “See? I knew you’d be good at this.”

In magic, we tend to want to avoid an actual failure or looking excited by what happened. We think it will make us look less cool. Instead, we like things like “sucker tricks.” “I’ll pretend to fail, and then I’ll prove all along that I was the smart, talented one!” These shouldn’t be called sucker tricks. They should be called douchebag tricks. Because when done in casual settings they make you look like a douchebag.

Ghost Deck Thoughts

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I don’t know why a bigger deal isn’t being made of this, but director Tony Scott is now putting together instructional downloads for Murphy’s Magic. At least, that’s my understanding based on the editing in the Ghost Deck tutorial. This is a real clip.

Other questionable choices by the Murphy’s crew is that the Ghost Deck comes in this card case.

What am I supposed to fucking do with that? A case with the name of the trick emblazoned on it (and Murphy’s Magic printed on the bottom)? This just might suggest to a savvy audience member that something isn’t quite normal with this deck.

In the instructions, they say to get a different box and put the cards in that. Why didn’t you just give me a different, nondescript box, geniuses?

Well, Andy, they can’t just send the trick out with no branded packaging.

Oh, I understand, but the thing is, that box came in this box.

So yes, they could have given a case to actually keep the deck in. One that would look like a normal card box and also keep it from blending in with all the other Bicycle decks you have lying around.

Also, magic product packaging is getting out of hand. Look, I get it, fuck the environment and all of that. But it’s a $15 deck (which would have been a $12 deck without the unnecessary expense of the fancy box). I don’t think we need this level of excess packaging and protection.

Magic products used to come in a ziplock bag. Sure, that too wasn’t great. But certainly there’s something between the packaging for an $1100 iPhone and a ham sandwich that makes sense for a deck of cards.

As for the trick itself… I don’t really do reviews here (when I do reviews, I only bother reviewing stuff I like, and you can find those in the monthly newsletter if you care about that), but I will state my experience with this because it’s semi-interesting.

The trick is a take on Gemini Twins, and more specifically Stolen Cards by Lennart Green—although that too likely has other predecessors.

It uses a Rainbow Deck (every card back is different). You give the spectator two “random” playing cards, the rest of the deck is dealt through face-down, and they place these two cards in the deck wherever they like, face-up. The deck is then spread and it’s revealed the two cards they put in the deck are right next to their mates. It’s then revealed that their backs match as well. And finally, the rest of the cards are shown to have blank faces.

One weird choice Murphy’s made (besides putting the cards in a case that says Ghost Deck) is that—for some reason—they gave the cards that you hand the spectator initially the same back design (different color, same design). Why they did this is beyond me. The card backs matching with their mates is part of the effect. But the two cards having any connection to each other is not. It’s just confusing. They should have had completely different backs.

You can rectify this yourself by switching them out for different normal cards, but it shouldn’t have been done that way in the first place. It suggests maybe not a lot of thought was put into this.

The bigger issue is the trick just doesn’t get as strong of a reaction as I would have hoped, which sort of surprised me. I’ve done a lot of Gemini Twins–based effects, and they always get a good response. And a blank-deck kicker ending is usually strong. But the reactions to this were very mild, by my standards.

Here’s my theory as to why… A Rainbow Deck is an unusual concept for people—a deck of cards made up of a single card from 52 other decks. A Blank Deck is also an unusual concept—a deck of cards where the faces weren’t printed.

These are weird concepts, but they’re not too difficult to wrap your head around.

A rainbow deck could be a special project you put together over time.

A blank deck could be some kind of mis-print or incomplete printing job.

However, a Blank Rainbow Deck is an order of magnitude more confusing. It’s no longer a deck where you took a card from other decks, because other decks don’t have cards with blank faces. And it’s not a misprinted deck, because these cards theoretically came from different packs. So it’s now a specially made deck with different backs and blank faces. That doesn’t resonate with people. It’s a confusing concept that seems made only for a magic trick.

Add to that the unnecessarily matching backs I mentioned before, and you just don’t have a very clean concept for a trick. That kind of muddiness sinks more tricks than you’d think. You can have a complex premise and get a good response. But you can’t have a confusing one.

Also, these might be the ugliest card backs ever committed to cardstock. I’m hoping they were designed by AI or something, because if a human actually designed these, their graphic-design teacher deserves a quiet beating with a bag of oranges.

The only framing that even begins to justify these backs is something like, “I’ve been creating a deck with a single card from all the shittiest, least-inspired decks ever made.”

Speaking of how little care went into this thing, notice the tagline on the product box.

An unexpected moment, beautifully timed.

What?

It could not be more generic. “An unexpected moment.” Okay. That literally applies to 100% of magic effects. “Beautifully timed.” Again, totally generic. Or, if it is specific to this trick, I’m not sure what that means here. Is this a watch trick? Something happening with an hourglass?

I mean, couldn’t you have done something with the idea of a Rainbow Deck and an all-white finale?

The rainbow breaks…then the blizzard hits.

I know, it’s not great. I farted it out in three seconds. But at least it’s related to the trick. Unlike the tagline you used. And, for that matter, the name of the trick. “Ghost Deck”? How so? Because ghosts are white? Why not Cocaine Deck? “Cocaine Deck… Blow Their Minds.”

Obviously they asked AI to come up with a tagline and that one seemed “good enough.” A lot about this release feels that way.

Pre-Tricking With Draw Cycle

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the concept of Pre-Tricks—that is, using a simple trick not primarily to fool the other person, but to establish the nature of the interaction. Similar to how “pre-talk” is used in hypnotism.

I’ve done something like this for a while now, although I wasn’t necessarily thinking of it in terms of a “pre-trick.”

What I use is the Draw Cycle feature of the Jerx App. This feature cycles through a sequence of outs and then locks in on one whenever you move the phone.

In one of my presets, I have the numbers 1–12.

This allows me to use the app with numbers under 12, a roll of two dice, an hour of the day, or, in theory, a month of the year if you have them think of the number of that month.

And, of course, any numbered list of 12 or fewer items. If there are eight different burgers on the menu, you can say, “I’m going to write down the name of one of the burgers… actually, I’ll just write down the number. I’m going to focus my thoughts on that burger, then we’ll make out for a little bit, and you tell me which burger you can taste a hint of on my breath.” Or whatever. That’s just an idea to point out you’re not limited to numbers exactly.

I almost never use the 1–12 reveal as the trick itself. Instead, it’s more a tool to use before getting into a proper effect in order to establish some element of the interaction.

Establishing the Power

You can use this as a quick way to establish where the power sits before moving on to something more interesting.

“I’m going to predict the number you’ll think of.”

“I’ve written down a number between 1 and 12. I want you to focus and see if you can read my mind.”

“This is my grandfather’s old watch. I’ve written down a number on my phone. I want you to rotate the hour hand until you feel compelled to stop on a single number. The watch has this weird pull over people. It can get people to do things they otherwise couldn’t.”

None of these are profound tricks on their own, but they’re quick effects that let you guide your spectator in a specific direction before taking them on a longer journey.

Same-Siding

“I’m going to tell you the one word in the dictionary you’re thinking of” is such a grand impossibility that it clearly carries the weight of a magic trick. A spectator who hasn’t been eased into it will almost always have their guard up—trying not to be fooled, not to give anything away.

Getting the right number, 1–12, is such a small trick that you can realistically present it as a moment of the two of you “getting on the same page” before moving on to something more substantial. Now they’re on your side rather than fighting you. That small shift can change the dynamic going forward, regardless of what comes next.

Calibrating

You don’t have to make your friend get the number right. It can sometimes make sense for them to be consistently off by the same amount. Or have some external factor affect their success.

For example, you could suggest there’s a “focal depth” that works best when reading minds: “It’s like when you read text. If it’s too far away it gets blurry, but if it’s too close, it does too.”

You stand a few feet away and see if they can guess the number you wrote down. They’re off by four. They take a couple of steps back and try again—they’re off by two now. “Okay, getting closer.” You send them a few more feet back, and they’re off by two again.

“Wait, I think the ideal spot is probably somewhere between the last two attempts. Put yourself right in the middle.”

This time you’ve locked in the “mental focal depth,” and they hit it dead-on.

Now that you’ve found the sweet spot, you can push it into something wilder.

Forcing a Spectator

In a group, you can steer the outcome by having everyone think of a number, then move forward with whoever comes closest. You already know who you want to ‘win,’ and you make the numbers fall that way.

It can play as a quick, throwaway means to ‘randomly’ pick someone—or as a little moment of connection: ‘Okay, it seems like we might be on the same wavelength.’

Qualifying or Disqualifying Spectators

As I mentioned in the original Pre-Tricks post, this is a quick way to see whether you and a spectator are actually ‘aligned’ enough to make another trick worth doing.

But because you’re not relying on luck here, you get to decide if you want to move forward with them and force that outcome.

You can also play around with this testing moment in the following way:

Someone asks to see a trick. You say, “Ah, we can try. I don’t know, it doesn’t always work great if I don’t know the person well. Here, I’ll write down a number on my phone and try to send it to you. Let’s see if you can tune in to what I’m sending.”

You write something down, then whisper something to someone else in the room.

The person you’re “testing” guesses the number 8. You turn your phone to show the number 6.

“Eh, too bad. Not surprising, really. We don’t know each other, so it’s unlikely we’d have that bond established already. Anyway, I’m going to head out.”

After you leave, the person you performed for asks the other what you whispered to him.

“He said you’d be off by two.”

Again, this isn’t about performing the strongest trick. It’s about using a tool to help establish a dynamic or set up a future performance. Pre-tricking.

And the great thing about the Draw Cycle app is that you don’t have to spend any time remembering how it works. You open it, choose the preset, and it starts cycling through. No mentally energy required.

Mailbag #155

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I’m working through my inventory of effects, editing them and weeding out things that no longer belong. I’m currently looking at Michael Murray’s sightless which featured on your Xmas special. The overall premise is dermi-optics (think of the Netflix film “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”).

In practical terms: The spectator thinks of a playing card, and finds its mate in the deck. You then use your finger tips to “read” the name of the mate. All the cards are then placed in your pocket and you bring them out reading cards as you go with your fingertips, eventually stopping on their thought of card. 

The effect has some similarities with Luke Jermay’s Colour Sense 2.0 which has an engaging story of a gifted girl from Charlotte who reacts to someone trying to expose her dermi-optic skill by bringing a knife to her hand, and she cries out “Are you trying to blind me?”. As with most of Luke Jermay’s stuff, it’s solid, but on balance Michael Murray’s method is more robust and less error prone. 

I like the back stories, but unless I’m missing an angle, the effect is always going to be “look at my super power”, and that’s a problem. Before I archive the effect, I thought I’d ask you if you could see a way to rescue it?—DM

Being able to sense colors with your fingertips is firmly magician-centric, because the premise itself is: I’m about to show them a power I have.

So can we “rescue” it? Not in the sense that we can make it something other than a demonstration of your power.

But I think we can make it more interesting and less dismissible.

Tricks like these are intriguing in a directly inverse proportion to how confident you are that you can do it.

If you say, “I can read colors with my fingertips. Hold on to your asses while I demonstrate this power,” people will think, He’s confident, so it’s obviously some sort of trick. Let’s see if I can keep from being tricked.

Your own confidence suggests you know exactly what’s about to happen, which screams, “this is a trick.” While that’s not always an issue, a lot of people will disengage from the moment at that point. Eh, it’s a trick. He’s going to fool me. I’ll feel dumb.

But if you have an old copy of Henry Sugar in your bag or on your coffee table (you can find these on eBay for cheap)…

And you say, “Oh yeah, I picked that up from home recently. It’s actually the book that got me interested in magic, in a roundabout way. Do you know the story of Henry Sugar?” Explain, explain. “And I was young enough to believe you could do this, so I spent months trying it. In my memory, I think I got good at it. Like, much better than average, I mean. But the other day I was thinking, ‘Wait… did I actually get good at that? Or did I dream I got good at it and I’ve been remembering my dream?’ I wanted to try it sometime and see. Actually… would you mind helping me with it?”

Now we have the book, and the backstory, and the uncertainty buried in the question of “Can I still do this?” or, “Was I ever able to do this or did I just convince myself I had?” And those things are more understandable and interesting to people than just: he’s going to show me some trick he’s worked on.

I don’t know if that “rescues” the trick, but it’s the direction I would go.

A little while ago you promised some more on the “Carefree” approach to magic on the site. Do you know when we can expect that? —SS

Yeah, I have one larger post on the subject that I’ve been working on that should be posted in the next couple of months.

But beyond that, it’s sort of the lens through which I view magic now, so you should see it reflected just generally on the site, and in the newsletters and books.

Someone on facebook was asking about an alternative handling for Socks and I remembered you had one that I loved but i forgot the details. I searched but can’t find the post. Did I dream it?—KH

If you dreamed it, it’s a dream come true, because yes, I do have a post on Socks. It was off the site for a little while. Sometimes performers contact me to buy the performing rights to something I posted and posts get removed temporarily or permanently. Fortunately there are 2000 other posts to read.

In this case, I was working on a trick for someone inspired by my Socks handling, but now the post is back.

In brief, the idea is to do the card matching part first (the less interesting bit of the routine). Have the two actual sock force cards in a place (pocket, lap, card box) where you can ring them in after the first part—which means the spectator can shuffle after the first phase depending on how you’re adding those cards to the deck.

Then do any force with those cards.

The cards matching the socks on your feet ends up feeling much more unexpected, as it seems like you’re setting them up to do a repeat of the first phase where cards match each other and then things take a weird turn.

You can read all the details in that post.

Dustings #135

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Uhm… just to clarify the plot of Firestarter, Drew Barrymore’s character can’t only start fires with her mind. I’m pretty sure she can start fires in all the normal ways and with her mind.

I wouldn’t bet my life on it, but it would seem like a strange, needlessly complicated plot detail if she couldn’t start fires the normal way. “This little girl can ignite anything with her thoughts! And she can’t operate a lighter!”

That’s a different book.

This Wants To Be A Trick

This is a possibly recurring featurette in the Dusting’s posts where I share something that isn’t a magic trick, but it seems like there’s a trick buried in there somewhere.

Five years ago I wrote a post on this Mystery Card found in a reader’s grandfather’s wallet from the 1930s.

I thought maybe our collective brains could figure out what it was, but I apparently overestimated the power of our collective brainpower.

But now, five years later, I realized that I could ask ChatGPT to sort it all out for us.

Here was its answer:

🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖

It’s a backward-word / mirror-reading puzzle table—almost certainly cut from an old puzzle book, word-game book, or children’s activity annual from the early–mid 1900s.

Here’s why we can be confident about that:

1. Many of the entries are simply words spelled backward

Examples:

  • SMOHT → THOMS

  • DEROF → FROED/FORDE

  • NYPLU → ULPYN

  • EZEL → LEZE (old crossword-style filler word)

  • Ffulb → Bluff

This kind of reversed spelling is extremely common in vintage puzzle pages.

2. The pointing-hand glyphs (“manicules”) were a standard graphic device

Puzzle and cipher pages from that era loved using pointing hands to show:

  • which direction to read,

  • which items pair together,

  • or which word to decode.

Those little hands are a huge clue that this is from a puzzle/cipher page rather than a technical or academic table.

3. The layout matches early 20th-century puzzle tables

The grid with:

  • short abbreviations at the top (“Wp.”, “Sw.”, “Sp.”, etc.)

  • numbered rows (“1p”, “2B”, “3S”)

  • and a strange title (“PHORU”)

…is exactly the kind of pseudo-scientific formatting puzzle books used to make the page look mysterious.

It resembles sections from:

  • 1930s–1950s British puzzle annuals,

  • magician club newsletters,

  • “secret writing” pages in juvenile puzzle books,

  • and cheap pulp puzzle digests.

4. The content isn’t consistent with chemistry, comics, languages, etc.

People sometimes confuse this sort of thing with:

  • a periodic table parody,

  • a code from a novel,

  • a magic trick instruction sheet,

  • or a foreign language.

But none of the abbreviations match technical fields. They do match nonsense headings used in old wordplay pages.

So what is it, specifically?

It’s a puzzle table where each cell contains a backward word, phrase, or partial cipher.
The solver was supposed to:

  • read them backward,

  • possibly combine them across columns,

  • and derive a hidden phrase or meta-answer.

The title PHORU is probably itself a warped/misspelled clue—possibly a scrambled version of “For You” or “Phon. Rv.” (phonetic reverse).

🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖

Oooooohhhhh, now I get it. It’s so clear now. NYPLU is just ULPYN backwards. (Never mind that that doesn’t make sense or that NYPLU doesn’t actually appear on the card.)

Mystery solved. The robots tell us this is simply a very fun puzzle from something like a “children’s activity annual.” Fun!

Gather ‘round, children. The annual activity book of indecipherable gibberish has arrived.

Is there a setting for AI where you can be like, “If there is no answer, you don’t have to give me one.” By default, it seems to operate like the dumbest people I’ve met: unwilling to say, “I don’t know.”